Directors: Joseph Pelling and Becky Sloan
Screenplay: Joseph Pelling, Becky
Sloan, Hugo Donkin and Baker Terry
Cast: Joseph Pelling as Red Guy /
Additional Voices; Baker Terry as Yellow Guy / Duck Guy / Additional
Characters; Becky Sloan as Notepad / Additional Voices; Royngtt as Tony the
Talking Clock / Shrignold / Additional Voices
[UK]
In a room, a red puppet with a
mop face, a yellow humanoid puppet, and a green duck puppet are sat around a
breakfast table in a kitchen. Wanting something to do, suddenly a notepad comes
alive and starts singing about being creative. Very much a children's
edutainment show barring the fact it tells the yellow guy green is not a
creative colour.
That's mean, but nothing prepares
you for the short to end on a nightmarish freak-out involving a cake made with
blood and organ meat, or glitter art with an actual heart. Admittedly, the
power has been lost now we've corrupted the image of children's entertainment
over parodies, mock films and even an officially sanctioned horror film where
the Hanna-Barbera characters the Banana Splits are sociopaths. But Don't Hug Me. I'm Scared became
something much more, all stemming from this first short film; reflecting back
on the entire project, by British artists Joseph
Pelling and Becky Sloan, whilst
sadly the premise of taking a children's entertainment aesthetic and using it
for darker material has been driven into the ground by now, the success and
attention this short had lead to five sequel shorts which grew in creativity
and layers.
First of all, let's nip the
theory in the bud that this is all a metaphor for how corrupt children's media
is. It became popular from a YouTube channel
The Film Theorists, and whilst the
idea does have a subconscious weight, where we should question what our
children watch, I a) prefer my surreal work to not have oversimplified
meanings, and b) many details complicates this all. Noticeably, according to a Motionographer interview, Becky Sloan likes this type of
children's edutainment, and that the project was originally to mock the idea of
teaching creativity, the Sesame Street
puppet aesthetic only coming afterwards1. There's also the fact that
since 2018, the duo have plans to make a TV series with these characters and
world which undercuts this entire theory they hate commercial television.
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Instead, there's a lot more interest material to unpack without ever caring to explain what the shorts are actually about. The series got more interesting when they aren't about shocking the viewer, the first episode despite beingthe most famous one of the weakest for me when the others later got more peculiar. The production without a doubt however is exceptional, one of if not the best YouTube made production I have ever seen even over what insane lengths Fatal Farm's Lasagna Cat got to. A world of felt and puppets is constructed with what would've been time consuming and difficult to put together, a history between Joseph Pelling and Becky Sloan in short films, music videos and even an advertisement for St. John Ambulance built around such ideas and trademarks. The comment earlier belay how sadly it's a now lazy juxtaposition to have children's iconography cuss, fuck or murder, since the times of CreepyPasta to SFM porn now exist, but it's a bigger challenge that Don't Hug Me... takes and succeeds in through having a legitimately surreal attitude with its style and tone.
I mean, most productions like
this wouldn't be this well made, embracing a cute world where everything has
eyeballs and looks cuddly until everything goes to hell. Few would qualify as
musicals, and have proper and well put together songs parodying the type found
in edutainment work. It's a greater challenge to recreate a children's Saturday
morning show with this level of detail - bright and vivid, the songs alone
perfect in comparison to recreating the kind I like myself grew up with from
these shows. I had originally viewed it a weakness how easily the series fell
into shock tactics - "death" spelt out in glitter among details in
the first short - and the later episodes thankfully went away from this to much
more interesting creepiness. But to the first short's testament, it sets this
up, possibly to the point viewers over thought theories about it, a sense of
playfulness in deliberately adding all the content it has. The idea of this
being about the evils of children television feels far less interesting when
the surface itself is more rewarding already, knowledge of how this was meant
to comment on the difficulty (and inanity) of "teaching creativity"
already poignant as the arbitrary views of the notepad don't help at all,
something thankfully played with through all the guest stars in this world's
surreal lack of logic.
Even the decision to evoke
children's television for the initial idea makes sense not as a slam against
capitalist television but in style for the theme - how many shows did I grow up
with, let alone Art Attack or Blue Peter, were about being
"creative"? The odder aspects, how it cuts to a digital CGI version
of the kitchen as a set, does offer many suggestions, whether it was meant to
mean a thing or not, but definitely the ideas initially there are strong, and
the freakish weirdness were the bloody icing on the cake.
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In 2014, the second short would appear in Time, in which a clock turns out to be a sadistic. Inherently for myself, the balance of horror and subtler weirdness is stronger, the lyrics and events where the clock's behaviour keeps cutting off more existential thoughts of time becoming enough of a commentary on the inability to think enough on such subjects. There's such a danger to over think material like this, not presume aspects of these shorts were Joseph Pelling and Becky Sloan just coming up with dark or weird ideas without greater meaning, whether abruptly cutting to a bath time against the protagonists' will or the abrupt appearances of fish. That said from what could have had no profound meaning can be itself meaningful instead what it's about - the moment that I'd argue hits a more profound meaning that any attempt at a sociological or political commentary is when the duck suggests time is a construct of the human mind, only for this to enrage the clock whose noise in anger is enough to cause yellow guy's ears to bleed.
You don't need to elaborate on
this further; the image of someone preventing a more complex question on an
established idea we are complacent of is a pointed comment enough. Arguably,
when the clock ages them to decay it's just meant to be the horror, with no
intellectual symbolism, as I suspect these shorts were always meant to be
entertainment first. But the "jokes" for a lack of a better name
themselves hit pertinent ideas just in what they are.
This definitely is to mind with
episode three, in which distraught by Duck killing a butterfly, Yellow Guy
flees a picnic and meets another butterfly who talks about love. What happens
next could be easily be a parody of religious cults as Yellow Guy meets a group
who sings to him about one's true love and bonds. I'd argue that its closer to
a cult as, honestly, one of the most embarrassing things to witness is bad, one
note anti-religious commentary in the midst of a piece of art, especially as it's
a dangerous thing to confuse a cult with a religion, religions for all their
problematic issues a complex structure of dogma and theology, which becomes
more complex when you require spokespeople for the God(s) and their morals can
slide in or an organised religion, whilst a cult is usually based on a dubious
single figure representing the Godhead themselves, not speaking for the actual
God or a series of figures, whose dogma is never about the betterment of people
but vapid platitudes without any of the struggle religion usually talks of when
informed. Also, there's a sense that, as I'd do in their roles, the creators
thought the punch line would be funnier if they were a cult of furry woodland
animals who worship a giant rock head, which is legitimately funny.
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And dark too, as the commentary comes not mocking religious ideas but that, for all their singing about a true love for everyone, the most inspired part is a tale within the short told of a deformed boy who hides in a cave with nothing about him ever finding true love being brought up as the tale is said to do, made even more striking and powerful in its corpse black humour in that no one bats an eye to this and just go along with singing. I'd wouldn't be surprised, thinking of this scene, whether the commentary of Episode three had nothing to do with parodying religion or the idea of monogamy, but just to take the absolute piss out of Disney musical numbers, and ones in children's animation and entertainment in general, by imagining the woodland creatures of Bambi and other animation practicing a Wicker Man-like cult.
If anything, the greater question
to ask is why this is creepy? There is something inherently odd about
children's entertainment when we return to it as adults. I accepted this
material as a child, in television to toys, but as adults with the knowledge
this material is created by other adults trying to appeal to children, these
exaggerated forms and aesthetics are strange. Strange creatures like the Teletubbies, baby faces in the sun and
all, for example with their garish colours and odd contraptions were weird,
even before you take into account the uncanny valley effect of costumes and
puppets. The mind of the child drastically changes when they become an adult,
and these strange colours and forms are curious to us grown up as a result. The
repetition and order, between games and activities repeated every episode,
could become hellish like a rejected Albert
Camus piece if you over thought it, but the nuisances and the freedom you
gain as an adult make these restrictions striking. The one thing I take from
the media theory is how, whilst a noble act to teach and educate children
through fun, to teach someone in a way that can become almost patronising and
encoding environmental influence is an issue in itself even if the lessons of
good morality are noble on the surface. If they are not thought about and
prodded at the same time, they become hollow and a trap.
Don't Hug Me... also does play with grotesque things, but its
better when its less shock related. Having a picnic consisting of raw chicken
legs, whilst leading one to hope the production staff washed their hands after
handling it all, is jarring in contrasting real meat against puppet felt in a
little, clever detail rather than explicit gore. The idea that the lessons of
the guest stars make no sense or are authoritarian in a problematic way is ran
with further, and for the better, in the episodes after the third one, and
really provides a glorious series of ill-logical but quotable dialogue. A lot
improves in episode four to six, the best of this little series of web videos,
but the ground work here for the first three were already strong. The
difference is that the creators decided to stray further from the gore and
nastiness, even if it reappears in Episode 5, with more gleefully surreal and
rewarding nightmare fuel. When I get to those final three episodes, these same
questions through this review will be asked again, but the initial three, if
they were the only ones made, were by themselves exceptional pieces of
strangeness.
Abstract Spectrum: Grotesque
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
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1) The interview is linked to HERE.
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